This Supernatural RPG Has Some Great Animated Portraits

Upcoming psychological horror RPG Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters was shown off at Tokyo Game Show, and the first half covers the adventure/visual novel chapter. The game – for PlayStation 3 and Vita – will be split into 13 “episodes” comprising visual novel adventure parts and battle parts. Below is a look at the first, courtesy 4Gamer.

We covered what happens in the first chapter previously–players are the new transfer student at Kurenai Academy High School in Shinjuku. On the first day, he spots a ghost while being given a tour of the school by class chairwoman Sayuri , before getting embroiled in a fight against an evil spirit. Saved by their classmate Masamune Shiga and another lady Chizuru Fukurai, players are recruited to assist the mysterious Evening Spatium Company in rooting out evil spirits.

As the video above shows, the visual novel half will cover chatting with other students and teachers, with a unique art style that has the illustrated characters constantly moving and shifting. Instead of conversation trees, however, players will adjust the flow of conversation by combining one of five emotions (such as love) and one of the five senses (touch, smell etc). That’s a total of some 25 combinations everytime the game asks for input, which will affect the paths towards the game’s ending.

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters will be out 2014 for PlayStation 3 and Vita.

It has great… (come on, think of a compliment…) animated portraits! J/K, this actually does look pretty cool.

http://s932.photobucket.com/ usagi_san

Loving the look of it.

Damarius Wingfield

*”Carry on my wayward son” plays*

Dagobert

Looks great… And then I read it’s visual novel, bleh.

DyLaN

Oh c’mon.

Dagobert

I just can’t get into visual novels. I gave a couple of them a try but I just can’t enjoy them. Like it might have great storylines and all but it just bores me. Like if it had some gameplay to it besides holding r1 to fast skip I would like them. If they turn something like this into an RPG game it’d be way better.

ShadowDivz

That’s okay dude. Perfectly understandable.

When i first played Fate/Stay night the visual novel genre didn’t really appeal to me either. I only tried it because i wanted to see what all the hub-bub was about and why Japanese love visual novels so much. I was disappointed.

Then i tried Ace Attorney and got it. But if you just can’t read text for hours on end(and that is what you do) then i can understand.

Dagobert

I’ve actually wanted to try Ace Attorney. Maybe I should try that.

ShadowDivz

I just realized your avatar is carlton.

And like i said, if you don’t want to read alot of text for hours(though it is somewhat interactive) then i advise agaisnt it.

Nexus

Man, this game must look drop-dead gorgeous on a Vita screen.

notentirelythere

I don’t know if the look works. For a visual novel, you suspend your disbelief and accept certain abstractions involved in the presentation, but at a point, doesn’t this approach the uncanny valley? Like, seeing these portraits getting tweened and warped dynamically when they’re still clearly 2D pictures is a little… gross! (esp.1:16) They’re like rubbery animatrons. The Chuck-E-Cheese band visual novel.

supervamp

Uhhh i didn’t know big eyes and bobble heads look like real people

notentirelythere

… what?

supervamp

You say it’s like uncanny valley but i would figure that would come from characters that look more like actual people and not animeish.

notentirelythere

Oh, arright, that’s fair!
The ultra-smooth, exaggerated movements are what I find so uncanny–like, it seems that’s trying to accentuate the organic look from the soft shading+muted coloring on the character designs, but irl you would never normally regard the minute movements one makes while idle, and movements when throwing one’s head back are slighter and jerkier than presented in the trailer. Small-stuff-like-that uncanny.

supervamp

I don’t know about that though they are using live 2d.

keriaku

I really hope we’ve reached a point where someone can pick this up! Aksys, XSeed…?

charles addow

Such a nice vibe @.@

Sergio Briceño

Very pretty indeed. Here is hoping that cell shading one day achieves this level of quality.

laurenhiya21

Woah that looks really good o-o I know I’ve seen a few games do this sort of thing, but nothing on this level of awesome… (all the others I’ve seen look a bit odd to me…)

Arcana Wiz

o.O *drooling* this is really beautiful!

Azzrem

good animation..but need to see the gameplay first

DyLaN

…..That about half of the gameplay demonstrated.

Warboss Aohd

Horror RPG………..dat ain’t somethin’ ya see every day.

benhofb

Hmm. I wonder if the portraits are 3D models but done really pretty or just straight up 2D animation… Regardless, this looks beautiful… one can hope it might come over or something…

supervamp

It’s likey that they are 2d portrait animated in a 3d way.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLnF7CQ8Ac
Though it’s not always the case dragon crown have similar moving 2d figures but i don’t think they used live 2d

Kelohmello

Pretty visuals. Animation style is similar to what Vanillaware encorporates into their games. It works very well here.

Fei

Animations itself are not really impressive since even cheap Date a Live Rinne Utopia have the same level, but this art style is preciously pretty. Also, are the game voiced or not? I’m fear not and its somewhat disheartening.

almostautumn

That looked really, really great. The character animation was way more engrossing than I’d expected, and the overall colors/art are both bright and engaging but no less somber as well.

Fingers crossed for localization; the focus being on ghosts rather than love here would probably be more accepted in the west. Zero escape and Ace attorney show that Visual novels can succeed, but that they just need to utilize a more active scenario rather than ‘slice-of-life’ to retain (most’s) concentration.

Renaldi Saputra

Ace Attorney isn’t just visual novel, though..
it’s more than it

almostautumn

Indeed, and so also is Zero Escape. That being said, those games are principally text and reading, and as they’ve already established that western gamers are both willing and capable of enjoying a videogame that is mostly script and story-telling, that there is an option for more strictly-visual novels to come to western shores. Again, I don’t believe that ‘Slice of Life’ titles would really fare so well, but in regards to this game, featuring ghosts, horror elements, and just a crisp, engaging art-direction— well, I really do believe it could succeed.

Renaldi Saputra

maybe, just like Corpse Party

Ouch My Head Said Dionysus

This isn’t just a visual novel, either. It has turn-based strategy battles.

Demeanor

Vanillaware-worthy!

DyLaN

The sprites have a bit more animation than the ones in CH game. I like. The art looks good too!

But the choices seems a little bit complicated though.

artemisthemp

I can’t really come to terms with this game.
I like the naturue of the game, but wasn’t able to get must from the traliler

enorka miho

I do hope it gets localised… Sony’s new team? Maybe..

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